Marketing 580 Blog

First, great posts by Shane and Anthony. Remember, once you have access to the blog, you should be able to post comments and responses as part of the ongoing conversation. Both of them raised some interesting issues. Lidrock is an interesting company and it's worth looking at their website, maybe even their promo clip. This is a very interesting combination of technology and applied consumer behavior research. Similarly, the issue of how marketing uses attractiveness and beauty to promote products and services is an ongoing source of controversy . From a practical (blogging) perspective, feel free to make use of hyperlinked material to add additional context to your post. This is half the fun and one of the big advantages of blogs. , blogs are getting more attention from the business community and business news journalists. OK, only a partial late shift with the kids tonight, but pardon the sloppy writing anyway. Today we are going to be talking about the PeaPod case and relationship marketing. Relationship marketing is widely perceived as a critical issue for marketers and one that lends itself to a consumer behavior class. The fundamentals of relationship marketing are applicable across most industries and diverse companies such as Absolut, Mercedes and credit card companies like American Express. Finally, if you have any really hard questions about the PeaPod case, we are going to try and quiz one of the authors and get some additional insights on this case.

I wanted to take a minute to talk about the influence of online political campaign techniques. Business Week had this story.

The online music business (on the pay-for-play side) has just had a major new entrant. Read on about Wal-Mart's latest foray. Also take a look at their new site.

Just a few more items about online music before we move on to other topics. This article in Fortune gives a good overview of the pay-for-play online services now operating. Note that users do not get outright ownership of what they purchase, but they get a package of digital "rights" that allow them to play their purchases on a certain number of computers or otherwise limit their unfettered use of the product. Do you think that consumers will be inclined to make purchases in this situation or is this a case of the copyright holders trying to "have their cake and eat it too"? Feel free to post your opinions. Also a couple of interesting web sites that relate to this debate can be found at the Digital Media Association and the Motion Picture Association of America. The MPAA is another organization that views the copyright/online distribution debate in very apolcalyptic terms as you can see here. I also mentioned one (of the many) solutions that have been put forward to make music available online and still reward the artists. Harvard professor Terry Fisher has Chapter 6 of his upcoming book, Promises to Keep: Technology, Law, and the Future of Entertainment, available online in which he details his strategy. This is a fun topic and we may return to it if time allows.

Also, some new information that deals directly with the competitiveness of the online "market." Take a look at the article "What Price Music" and the attached chart, from the New York Times, which also tracks these issues in a special section, which contains several excellent articles. A more current event is a news item on the entry of the Virgin Group into online music retailing. Online file-sharing is a "hot-button" issue that all sides tend to view in extreme, if not apocalyptic, terms. To get a better idea of what I mean, take a look at DownHill Battle and EPIC on the one hand and this from the RIAA's site on the other.

OK, I am back from the land of the sleepless new parent and I wanted to make a few postings this afternoon in preparation for our case tomorrow on Online Music Distribution. If you want some background on the original Napster litigation and other early cases take a look at this article. This article was posted as part of a graduate course reading list for an Electronic Commerce class at the University of Montreal. As far as I know, this was without permission of the copyright holders.